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The hacked emails at the center of Mueller’s Russia investigation, explained

There’s one positively enormous shoe that still hasn’t dropped in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 campaign: an indictment about all those hacked emails.

The hacking and release of leading political figures’ emails is the most visible election intervention attributed to Russia’s government. And it’s long been one of the leading, and perhaps the leading, possibility about just what “collusion” between Donald Trump’s team and the Russians might have involved.

That’s not mere speculation. We’ve gradually learned of not one but six times Trump associates at least tried to get involved with either Russian-provided dirt, hacked Democratic emails, or WikiLeaks. We don’t yet know whether these furtive contacts resulted in anything of significance — but one of these advisers, George Papadopoulos, has already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the matter and has begun cooperating with Mueller’s team.